OpenRaiser/Intern-Atlas huggingface dataset:
JDATATRANS for Array Obfuscation in Java Source Code to Defeat Reverse Engineering from Decompiled Codes
Venue: arXiv cs.CR 2008
Year: 2008

Software obfuscation or obscuring a software is an approach to defeat the practice of reverse engineering a software for using its functionality illegally in the development of another software. Java applications are more amenable to reverse engineering and re-engineering attacks through methods such as decompilation because Java class files store the program in a semi complied form called 'byte' codes. The existing obfuscation systems obfuscate the Java class files. Obfuscated source code produce obfuscated byte codes and hence two level obfuscation (source code and byte code level) of the program makes it more resilient to reverse engineering attacks. But source code obfuscation is much more difficult due to richer set of programming constructs and the scope of the different variables used in the program and only very little progress has been made on this front. Hence programmers resort to adhoc manual ways of obscuring their program which makes it difficult for its maintenance and usability. To address this issue partially, we developed a user friendly tool JDATATRANS to obfuscate Java source code by obscuring the array usages. Using various array restructuring techniques such as 'array splitting', 'array folding' and 'array flattening', in addition to constant hiding, our system obfuscate the input Java source code and produce an obfuscated Java source code that is functionally equivalent to the input program. We also perform a number of experiments to measure the potency, resilience and cost incurred by our tool.
Spreadsheet Components For All
Venue: arXiv cs.SE 2008
Year: 2008

We have prototyped a "spreadsheet component repository" Web site, from which users can copy "components" into their own Excel or Google spreadsheets. Components are collections of cells containing formulae: in real life, they would do useful calculations that many practitioners find hard to program, and would be rigorously tested and documented. Crucially, the user can tell the repository which cells in their spreadsheet to use for a componen's inputs and outputs. The repository will then reshape the component to fit. A single component can therefore be used in many different sizes and shapes of spreadsheet. We hope to set up a spreadsheet equivalent of the high-quality numerical subroutine libraries that revolutionised scientific computing, but where instead of subroutines, the library contains such components.
Controlling End User Computing Applications - a case study
Venue: arXiv cs.HC 2008
Year: 2008

We report the results of a project to control the use of end user computing tools for business critical applications in a banking environment. Several workstreams were employed in order to bring about a cultural change within the bank towards the use of spreadsheets and other end-user tools, covering policy development, awareness and skills training, inventory monitoring, user licensing, key risk metrics and mitigation approaches. The outcomes of these activities are discussed, and conclusions are drawn as to the need for appropriate organisational models to guide the use of these tools.
Mathematical and computer tools of discrete dynamic modeling and analysis of complex systems in control loop
Venue: arXiv cs.CE 2008
Year: 2008

We present a method of discrete modeling and analysis of multilevel dynamics of complex large-scale hierarchical dynamic systems subject to external dynamic control mechanism. Architectural model of information system supporting simulation and analysis of dynamic processes and development scenarios (strategies) of complex large-scale hierarchical systems is also proposed.
Termination Criteria for Solving Concurrent Safety and Reachability Games
Venue: arXiv cs.GT 2008
Year: 2008

We consider concurrent games played on graphs. At every round of a game, each player simultaneously and independently selects a move; the moves jointly determine the transition to a successor state. Two basic objectives are the safety objective to stay forever in a given set of states, and its dual, the reachability objective to reach a given set of states. We present in this paper a strategy improvement algorithm for computing the value of a concurrent safety game, that is, the maximal probability with which player~1 can enforce the safety objective. The algorithm yields a sequence of player-1 strategies which ensure probabilities of winning that converge monotonically to the value of the safety game. Our result is significant because the strategy improvement algorithm provides, for the first time, a way to approximate the value of a concurrent safety game from below. Since a value iteration algorithm, or a strategy improvement algorithm for reachability games, can be used to approximate the same value from above, the combination of both algorithms yields a method for computing a converging sequence of upper and lower bounds for the values of concurrent reachability and safety games. Previous methods could approximate the values of these games only from one direction, and as no rates of convergence are known, they did not provide a practical way to solve these games.
The ADAPT Tool: From AADL Architectural Models to Stochastic Petri Nets through Model Transformation
Venue: arXiv cs.SE 2008
Year: 2008

ADAPT is a tool that aims at easing the task of evaluating dependability measures in the context of modern model driven engineering processes based on AADL (Architecture Analysis and Design Language). Hence, its input is an AADL architectural model annotated with dependability-related information. Its output is a dependability evaluation model in the form of a Generalized Stochastic Petri Net (GSPN). The latter can be processed by existing dependability evaluation tools, to compute quantitative measures such as reliability, availability, etc.. ADAPT interfaces OSATE (the Open Source AADL Tool Environment) on the AADL side and SURF-2, on the dependability evaluation side. In addition, ADAPT provides the GSPN in XML/XMI format, which represents a gateway to other dependability evaluation tools, as the processing techniques for XML files allow it to be easily converted to a tool-specific GSPN.
An Asymptotically Optimal RFID Authentication Protocol Against Relay Attacks
Venue: arXiv cs.CR 2008
Year: 2008

Relay attacks are a major concern for RFID systems: during an authentication process an adversary transparently relays messages between a verifier and a remote legitimate prover. We present an authentication protocol suited for RFID systems. Our solution is the first that prevents relay attacks without degrading the authentication security level: it minimizes the probability that the verifier accepts a fake proof of identity, whether or not a relay attack occurs.
Rate based call gapping with priorities and fairness between traffic classes
Venue: arXiv cs.NI 2008
Year: 2008

This paper presents a new rate based call gapping method. The main advantage is that it provides maximal throughput, priority handling and fairness for traffic classes without queues, unlike Token Bucket which provides only the first two or Weighted Fair Queuing that uses queues. The Token Bucket is used for call gapping because it has good throughput characteristics. For this reason we present a mixture of the two methods keeping the good properties of both. A mathematical model has been developed to support our proposal. It defines the three requirements and proves theorems about if they are satisfied with the different call gapping mechanisms. Simulation, numerical results and statistical discussion are also presented to underpin the findings.
A Layered Lattice Coding Scheme for a Class of Three User Gaussian Interference Channels
Venue: arXiv cs.IT 2008
Year: 2008

The paper studies a class of three user Gaussian interference channels. A new layered lattice coding scheme is introduced as a transmission strategy. The use of lattice codes allows for an "alignment" of the interference observed at each receiver. The layered lattice coding is shown to achieve more than one degree of freedom for a class of interference channels and also achieves rates which are better than the rates obtained using the Han-Kobayashi coding scheme.
Audio Classification from Time-Frequency Texture
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2008
Year: 2008

Time-frequency representations of audio signals often resemble texture images. This paper derives a simple audio classification algorithm based on treating sound spectrograms as texture images. The algorithm is inspired by an earlier visual classification scheme particularly efficient at classifying textures. While solely based on time-frequency texture features, the algorithm achieves surprisingly good performance in musical instrument classification experiments.
A Generic Top-Down Dynamic-Programming Approach to Prefix-Free Coding
Venue: arXiv cs.DS 2008
Year: 2008

Given a probability distribution over a set of n words to be transmitted, the Huffman Coding problem is to find a minimal-cost prefix free code for transmitting those words. The basic Huffman coding problem can be solved in O(n log n) time but variations are more difficult. One of the standard techniques for solving these variations utilizes a top-down dynamic programming approach. In this paper we show that this approach is amenable to dynamic programming speedup techniques, permitting a speedup of an order of magnitude for many algorithms in the literature for such variations as mixed radix, reserved length and one-ended coding. These speedups are immediate implications of a general structural property that permits batching together the calculation of many DP entries.
Control software analysis, Part I Open-loop properties
Venue: arXiv cs.SE 2008
Year: 2008

As the digital world enters further into everyday life, questions are raised about the increasing challenges brought by the interaction of real-time software with physical devices. Many accidents and incidents encountered in areas as diverse as medical systems, transportation systems or weapon systems are ultimately attributed to "software failures". Since real-time software that interacts with physical systems might as well be called control software, the long litany of accidents due to real-time software failures might be taken as an equally long list of opportunities for control systems engineering. In this paper, we are interested only in run-time errors in those pieces of software that are a direct implementation of control system specifications: For well-defined and well-understood control architectures such as those present in standard textbooks on digital control systems, the current state of theoretical computer science is well-equipped enough to address and analyze control algorithms. It appears that a central element to these analyses is Lyapunov stability theory, which translate into invariant theory in computer implementations.
Multi-Armed Bandits in Metric Spaces
Venue: arXiv cs.DS 2008
Year: 2008

In a multi-armed bandit problem, an online algorithm chooses from a set of strategies in a sequence of trials so as to maximize the total payoff of the chosen strategies. While the performance of bandit algorithms with a small finite strategy set is quite well understood, bandit problems with large strategy sets are still a topic of very active investigation, motivated by practical applications such as online auctions and web advertisement. The goal of such research is to identify broad and natural classes of strategy sets and payoff functions which enable the design of efficient solutions. In this work we study a very general setting for the multi-armed bandit problem in which the strategies form a metric space, and the payoff function satisfies a Lipschitz condition with respect to the metric. We refer to this problem as the "Lipschitz MAB problem". We present a complete solution for the multi-armed problem in this setting. That is, for every metric space (L,X) we define an isometry invariant which bounds from below the performance of Lipschitz MAB algorithms for X, and we present an algorithm which comes arbitrarily close to meeting this bound. Furthermore, our technique gives even better results for benign payoff functions.
Efficient MIMO-OFDM Schemes for Future Terrestrial Digital TV with Unequal Received Powers
Venue: arXiv cs.NI 2008
Year: 2008

This article investigates the effect of equal and unequal received powers on the performances of different MIMO-OFDM schemes for terrestrial digital TV. More precisely, we focus on three types of non-orthogonal schemes: the BLAST scheme, the Linear Dispersion (LD) code and the Golden code, and we compare their performances to that of Alamouti scheme. Using two receiving antennas, we show that for moderate attenuation on the second antenna and high spectral efficiency, Golden code outperforms other schemes. However, Alamouti scheme presents the best performance for low spectral efficiency and equal received powers or when one antenna is dramatically damaged. When three antennas are used, we show that Golden code offers the highest robustness to power unbalance at the receiving side
Bit Error Rate Prediction of Coded MIMO-OFDM Systems
Venue: arXiv cs.NI 2008
Year: 2008

Bit error rate (BER) prediction over channel realisations has emerged as an active research area. In this paper, we give analytical signal to interference and noise ratio (SINR) evaluation of MIMO-OFDM systems using an iterative receiver. Using this analytical SINR expression, we propose an accurate BER prediction method based on effective exponential SINR mapping (EESM) method. We show by simulations that our method is independent of the channel realisation and of the MIMO scheme. It is only dependent on the modulation and coding scheme.
3D MIMO Scheme for Broadcasting Future Digital TV in Single Frequency Networks
Venue: arXiv cs.NI 2008
Year: 2008

This letter introduces a 3D space-time-space block code for future digital TV systems. The code is based on a double layer structure for inter-cell and intra-cell transmission mode in single frequency networks. Without increasing the complexity of the receiver, the proposed code is very efficient for different transmission scenarios.
An Export Architecture for a Multimedia Authoring Environment
Venue: arXiv cs.MM 2008
Year: 2008

In this paper, we propose an export architecture that provides a clear separation of authoring services from publication services. We illustrate this architecture with the LimSee3 authoring tool and several standard publication formats: Timesheets, SMIL, and XHTML.
Perturbation-based Distributed Beamforming for Wireless Relay Networks
Venue: arXiv cs.IT 2008
Year: 2008

This paper deals with distributed beamforming techniques for wireless networks with half-duplex amplify-and-forward relays. Existing schemes optimize the beamforming weights based on the assumption that channel state information (CSI) is available at the relays. We propose to use adaptive beamforming based on deterministic perturbations and limited feedback (1-bit) from the destination to the relays in order to avoid CSI at the relays. Two scalable perturbation schemes are considered and practical implementation aspects are addressed. Simulation results confirm that the proposed techniques closely approach optimum performance and have satisfactory tracking properties in time-varying environments.
Mode Change Protocol for Multi-Mode Real-Time Systems upon Identical Multiprocessors
Venue: arXiv cs.OS 2008
Year: 2008

In this paper, we propose a synchronous protocol without periodicity for scheduling multi-mode real-time systems upon identical multiprocessor platforms. Our proposal can be considered to be a multiprocessor extension of the uniprocessor protocol called "Minimal Single Offset protocol".
Checking Security Policy Compliance
Venue: arXiv cs.CR 2008
Year: 2008

Ensuring compliance of organizations to federal regulations is a growing concern. This paper presents a framework and methods to verify whether an implemented low-level security policy is compliant to a high-level security policy. Our compliance checking framework is based on organizational and security metadata to support refinement of high-level concepts to implementation specific instances. Our work uses the results of refinement calculus to express valid refinement patterns and their properties. Intuitively, a low-level security policy is compliant to a high-level security policy if there is a valid refinement path from the high-level security policy to the low-level security policy. Our model is capable of detecting violations of security policies, failures to meet obligations, and capability and modal conflicts.
Mobility Management Framework
Venue: arXiv cs.PF 2008
Year: 2008

This paper investigates mobility management strategies from the point of view of their need of signalling and processing resources on the backbone network and load on the air interface. A method is proposed to model the serving network and mobile node mobility in order to be able to compare the different types of mobility management algorithms. To obtain a good description of the network we calculate descriptive parameters from given topologies. Most mobility approaches derived from existing protocols are analyzed and their performances are numerically compared in various network and mobility scenarios. We developed a mobility management framework that is able to give general designing guidelines for the next generation mobility managements on given network, technology and mobility properties. With our model an operator can design the network and tune the parameters to obtain the optimal implementation of course revising existing systems is also possible. We present a vertical handover decision method as a special application of our model framework.
Three New Complexity Results for Resource Allocation Problems
Venue: arXiv cs.MA 2008
Year: 2008

We prove the following results for task allocation of indivisible resources: - The problem of finding a leximin-maximal resource allocation is in P if the agents have max-utility functions and atomic demands. - Deciding whether a resource allocation is Pareto-optimal is coNP-complete for agents with (1-)additive utility functions. - Deciding whether there exists a Pareto-optimal and envy-free resource allocation is Sigma_2^p-complete for agents with (1-)additive utility functions.
Asymptotic Eigenvalue Moments of Wishart-Type Random Matrix Without Ergodicity in One Channel Realization
Venue: arXiv cs.IT 2008
Year: 2008

Consider a random matrix whose variance profile is random. This random matrix is ergodic in one channel realization if, for each column and row, the empirical distribution of the squared magnitudes of elements therein converges to a nonrandom distribution. In this paper, noncrossing partition theory is employed to derive expressions for several asymptotic eigenvalue moments (AEM) related quantities of a large Wishart-type random matrix $\bb H\bb H^†$ when $\bb H$ has a random variance profile and is nonergodic in one channel realization. It is known the empirical eigenvalue moments of $\bb H\bb H^†$ are dependent (or independent) on realizations of the variance profile of $\bb H$ when $\bb H$ is nonergodic (or ergodic) in one channel realization. For nonergodic $\bb H$, the AEM can be obtained by i) deriving the expression of AEM in terms of the variance profile of $\bb H$, and then ii) averaging the derived quantity over the ensemble of variance profiles. Since the AEM are independent of the variance profile if $\bb H$ is ergodic, the expression obtained in i) can also serve as the AEM formula for ergodic $\bb H$ when any realization of variance profile is available.
Construction of Near-Optimum Burst Erasure Correcting Low-Density Parity-Check Codes
Venue: arXiv cs.IT 2008
Year: 2008

In this paper, a simple, general-purpose and effective tool for the design of low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes for iterative correction of bursts of erasures is presented. The design method consists in starting from the parity-check matrix of an LDPC code and developing an optimized parity-check matrix, with the same performance on the memory-less erasure channel, and suitable also for the iterative correction of single bursts of erasures. The parity-check matrix optimization is performed by an algorithm called pivot searching and swapping (PSS) algorithm, which executes permutations of carefully chosen columns of the parity-check matrix, after a local analysis of particular variable nodes called stopping set pivots. This algorithm can be in principle applied to any LDPC code. If the input parity-check matrix is designed for achieving good performance on the memory-less erasure channel, then the code obtained after the application of the PSS algorithm provides good joint correction of independent erasures and single erasure bursts. Numerical results are provided in order to show the effectiveness of the PSS algorithm when applied to different categories of LDPC codes.
A Layered Grammar Model: Using Tree-Adjoining Grammars to Build a Common Syntactic Kernel for Related Dialects
Venue: arXiv cs.CL 2008
Year: 2008

This article describes the design of a common syntactic description for the core grammar of a group of related dialects. The common description does not rely on an abstract sub-linguistic structure like a metagrammar: it consists in a single FS-LTAG where the actual specific language is included as one of the attributes in the set of attribute types defined for the features. When the lang attribute is instantiated, the selected subset of the grammar is equivalent to the grammar of one dialect. When it is not, we have a model of a hybrid multidialectal linguistic system. This principle is used for a group of creole languages of the West-Atlantic area, namely the French-based Creoles of Haiti, Guadeloupe, Martinique and French Guiana.
On Resource Allocation in Fading Multiple Access Channels - An Efficient Approximate Projection Approach
Venue: arXiv cs.IT 2008
Year: 2008

We consider the problem of rate and power allocation in a multiple-access channel. Our objective is to obtain rate and power allocation policies that maximize a general concave utility function of average transmission rates on the information theoretic capacity region of the multiple-access channel. Our policies does not require queue-length information. We consider several different scenarios. First, we address the utility maximization problem in a nonfading channel to obtain the optimal operating rates, and present an iterative gradient projection algorithm that uses approximate projection. By exploiting the polymatroid structure of the capacity region, we show that the approximate projection can be implemented in time polynomial in the number of users. Second, we consider resource allocation in a fading channel. Optimal rate and power allocation policies are presented for the case that power control is possible and channel statistics are available. For the case that transmission power is fixed and channel statistics are unknown, we propose a greedy rate allocation policy and provide bounds on the performance difference of this policy and the optimal policy in terms of channel variations and structure of the utility function. We present numerical results that demonstrate superior convergence rate performance for the greedy policy compared to queue-length based policies. In order to reduce the computational complexity of the greedy policy, we present approximate rate allocation policies which track the greedy policy within a certain neighborhood that is characterized in terms of the speed of fading.